My Professor is a troll!

Context: My module Psychology of Learning has two mid-terms and one finals - all of which are MCQ (or so we are told). We had our first mid-term earlier in the semester which was 25 MCQ, and today was my second mid-term, which was supposed to be 25 MCQ too.

So at 3.30PM the professor walked into class and gave out the bubble form to shade our MCQs. As we filled in our details, he began writing some stuff on the board, and said "As you know, this mid term has 25 MCQs...' and he wrote '25 MCQ - 1 mark each'. Then he continued writing: "1 Essay - 4 marks'.

Murmurs and gasps of surprise/shock/disbelief echoed throughout the lecture room (yes it's kind of a room here, not a hall or theatre like in NUS). I heard a girl mutter 'can he do this??!' and others go 'omg' as the room was abuzz with a light chatter.

The professor kept a straight face and began handing out the papers, and said something along the lines of "If you have any questions, just raise your hand, like if the essay question is too difficult..." as he gave out the papers.

Personally, I was actually smirking inside and somehow felt confident because, well, NUS has prepared me well with MAINLY essay exams and it's only in the US here in Boston Uni that everything somehow is MCQ. I didn't doubt my smoking skills will trump the Americans.  Thus, in my mind, I wasn't thinking 'I am so screwed' but 'I may be screwed but these people are more screwed than me" LOL.

Naturally, when everyone got a copy of the exam paper we all flipped to search for this mysterious surprise essay question. When I saw it, my eyes rolled to the back of my head and came back down the other side.

"In more than one sentence, suggest how this course can be improved. Full marks will be given as long as your answer is clearly and sensibly written. (4 marks)"

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="210"] And below the question there was this image[/caption]

Ok fine there wasn't a trollface but walaoeh!!! So troll!

 

Oh, I got a 24/25 for the quiz (he let you check answers after you hand it in). Damn it silly single mistake. (oh, and +4m for the ESSAY question. Gave him a good three lines of feedback, including 'Professors should not give students heart attacks'.) (Ok fine I didn't write that)

 

False Confessions

Would you confess to a crime you didn't commit?

I watched a short film today in my Psychology and Criminal Justice class which really disturbed and annoyed me because of what transpired in it. It was a documentary on an actual criminal case in Norfolk, where four men separately confessed to a gang rape and murder which they didn't commit and were convicted to life sentence in prison without parole. How did it all happen?  Read on for the ridiculous story.

Amazing Poker Hand!!

I played some poker with some exchange friends today, no money involved, just all for fun. It was pretty fun as I ended up winning by quite a bit:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="336"] The red chips were the 2nd highest denomination. $1 green, $2 blues, $5 reds, $10 black[/caption]

Do you know Ahmad?

I am very bored and have a lot of free time. So this is what I do.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="384"] in case you missed it, my reply at the bottom says 'Nothing in JENeral'[/caption]













I know i know. I am the lameness ultimate x 99.

A Snowy Fantasy

One of my childhood dreams, just like probably every child, was to experience snow. Snow sounds like such a mystical, fairy-tale concept for me as I come from Singapore, a tropical island with only sun and rain. Snow only appears in TV shows and movies and dreams.

Last week, I got my first ever frosted breath. This is simply when you exhale and you see the misted/smoke thingy - once again, another mystical, fairy-tale concept that I always saw in TV shows and movies. I was happily playing with it like a little kid and my friend was shaking her head wondering how I could be four years older than her. But I didn't care. I was happy. I was fulfilling a fantasy.

Today, another one of those fantasies was fulfilled. I was walking to the gym after class, and the weather forecast predicted it to rain so I was holding an umbrella to shelter myself from the seemingly light drizzle. After a while, I noticed something odd about the rain - it wasn't falling like normal raindrops - it was.... floating sideways. And the raindrops appeared more like specks than drops of water.

After a few more meters of walking and when little ice specks landed on my jacket, I suddenly realized that IT WAS SNOWING!!!

My thoughts were verified when I saw some girls running somewhere and one exclaimed 'It's snowing!!!' capturing the same excitement I had in me. I took out my glove I had on to catch a snowflake - a mistake because the biting wind almost froze my hand and I had to keep it inside - but I continued admiring and gushing at the multiple snowflakes that began landing on my clothes.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="344"] A huge ass snowflake[/caption]

The next thing I did was to pull out my phone and post on Facebook - I think I was one of the first few to realize it was snowing because I was outdoors at that time. I was quite surprised to get quite a few likes on the simple status : "IT'S SNOWING!!!' I guess snow is just something magical for many of us - somewhat of a mystical entity that only appears once in a blue moon (i.e. if you travel elsewhere)

Snow is really beautiful. I don't know what it is about falling snowflakes, but it's the swirl of the snowflakes in the wind and the way they dance as they fall. It's nothing like rain which just takes a straight projectory down to earth - no, each snowflake swirls and twirls in the air for quite a while, carried by the wind currents, before it finally descends to the ground.

I was in the gym for the next 2-3 hours as it was snowing, and I didn't realize the extent of the snowfall until I came out :



And this was cute:





The streets were covered with snow, which made it quite slippery and scary to walk around, so I was shuffling slowly in my basketball shoes. I hope my Timberland boots do fine in walking (they're not proper winter boots). I was admiring the snow-covered streets/cars/trees/vegetation - everything basically. It was so beautiful. Words can't describe it.

This reminded me of another time when I was just left in awe - at the MBS Light Show. This was the same feeling. I just wanted to admire the beauty of the white landscape, and watch the helter skelter snowflakes begin their gradual descent to the ground.

I shall end this post with a picture of me happily basking in the snow. Ok I'm not really basking and I'm actually wincing abit because at that point of time a gust of strong wind was blowing at me and smashing little ice bits into my face lol.



Snow <3

 

EDIT:

I was posting on Facebook saying how I wanted to throw a snowball at someone for fun, and after chatting with some friends we decided to go out to play with snow! :D



We took many pictures which you can see on Facebook, and I really like how the snowflakes that were still falling were captured by my camera! Gives it a more snowy feel hehe.



Melody's a very nice friendly Californian girl who has cousins in Singapore and thinks Singlish is very cool LOL. She wants to learn my accent which is like whaaat. She built this little snowman and I brought some M&Ms which we used for the eyes and nose. She managed to apply the blush by smudging the red M&M! Clever!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="576"] My ugly fail snowman haha. Must try again next time.[/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="432"] Pretty tree :D Everything with snow looks so pretty!![/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="576"] The lovely people I went out with :D[/caption]